Living in Tokyo for more than a decade, you’re getting used to the stories of “strange Japan” stirring up the global media. Rent a family!The suicide forest!Generation Z has no interest in sex!We are used to such tropes.
From time to time, however, a report comes in that even we Tokyoites test in battle, saying out loud, “No way!”This has been the collective reaction to reports that Tokyo will get young Japanese to drink more alcohol.
This is true, oddly enough. One would think that any government would count its lucky stars if the twenties were not crushed too often. Fewer fights in bars. Less or cycling. Quieter neighborhoods. Decrease in domestic violence. Less alcoholism and more health. Choose your advanced quality of life metric.
However, young Japanese people don’t often go to pubs and bottle department stores like their parents’ generation did. Covid-19 has not helped, leading to an even sharper demographic divide. Having enjoyed not drinking with the boss after working for more than two years or more, few young employees need to go back to the mandated criteria of pre-Covid culture.
The New Japanese Crusade “Sake Viva!” it shows that the government needs to bring other people back to the minds of young Japanese people. The national tax administration must “attract the younger generation . . . and revitalize the industry. “
He plans to invite other Japanese in their twenties and thirties to participate in a brainstorming contest. The goal: to design methods to “stimulate young people’s demand for alcohol. “They can take the form of news and promotional campaigns. , cutting-edge products and even concepts that use synthetic and metaverse intelligence.
So Japan is serious. But let’s be fair about the genuine driving force here: weak public finances. The explanation for why Japan remains a haven for smokers, years after the global evolution of smoking, is a public dependence on tax revenues. Tokyo.
Crowds of smokers gather in narrow alleys at lunchtime in Nihombashi.
The same goes for Big Booze, which is why this story is the baby of the National Tax Agency. In 2021, alcohol-related tasks added more than $8 billion. It is true that this amount is slightly decisive for a saving of $ 5 trillion. But it’s actually helping to pay a little on my own of $75,000.
This is a dark budget step. Data released this week showed Japan’s capita-consistent public debt topped 10 million yen for the first time, or about $75,000. main points of the second largest economy in Asia.
In 2021, this country of 125. 5 million people bled some 644,000 people, the biggest drop since statistics began tabulating in 1950. narrowing the hole of debt with the workers.
In the 12 months to July 1, notable bonds and loans overall reached a record 1,255. 19 trillion yen, or about $9. 3 trillion. That means a drop of about 14 trillion yen in the last quarter alone. The annual gross domestic product of Ecuador or two of Uzbekistan.
Now, the typical way to characterize this debt frenzy is that Covid-19 has been the Japanese economy. It is also a reminder that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s party, despite everything, is achieving the 2% inflation it has lacked for a decade. now, he is not satisfied with it.
However, Japan’s debt increased in the seven or eight years before most people in Asia knew about Wuhan. From 2012 to 2019, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, the defeated Shinzo Abe, pledged to increase GDP to pay off the debt. worst debt in the evolved world.
It was easier to factor more government debt and inspire the Bank of Japan to increase its asset purchases. A stable worsening of the debt-to-GDP ratio left Japan in a pre-existing scenario once the pandemic hit. True, Covid-19 didn’t help, but Tokyo had been in debt indefinitely for many years.
So here we are with Tokyo to generate tax revenue in any and every possible way. If that means encouraging other young people to ask for more guided pub tours, so be it. This, at least, turns out to be the mindset of the government. desperate to save you Moody’s Investors Service, S
The irony, of course, is that Japanese tax revenues hit a record high in the last fiscal year amid sustained corporate profits. Thanks to ultra-low interest rates and competitive purchases by the BOJ, tokyo’s debt financial burden gave the impression of being lower.
Now that the Federal Reserve is tightening, inflation is rising, and corporate profits are driing up, the Japanese government is resorting to bizarre tactics to pay its bills. What else can we say about a government that pushes other young people to shoot bottles?Another round, anyone?